Hold the mystery without losing the faith

A graduate-level theological school that equips pastors, chaplains, and serious students to construct a rigorous, biblically grounded theology of suffering and divine healing — so you can stand in the pulpit, at the bedside, and before the hardest questions with both intellectual integrity and pastoral compassion.

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This school is step 4 of Master of Arts in Theology — a 6-school journey.See the whole path

I want you to leave this school not with every answer, but with the theological depth and pastoral courage to stand in the hardest places and still point to Christ.

— Timothy Atunnise

What you'll learn

What you'll be able to do

Construct a comprehensive biblical theology of suffering that integrates Old Testament lament, Christology, and eschatological hope into a coherent doctrinal framework
Analyze and defend a faithful Christian theodicy in response to the philosophical problem of evil, engaging major objections with both intellectual rigor and pastoral sensitivity
Perform close theological readings of key suffering texts — including Job, the Psalms, Isaiah 53, and the Pauline epistles — situating each within its canonical and redemptive-historical context
Articulate a robust biblical theology of divine healing that spans covenant history, the healing ministry of Jesus, apostolic practice, and the charismatic gifts of the Spirit
Develop a theologically grounded pastoral theology for ministering to the sick, grieving, and persistently unhealed, including responsible integration of medicine, prayer, and anointing
Synthesize the 'already and not yet' of the Kingdom of God into a Christ-centered theology of suffering, healing, and resurrection hope for personal formation and congregational teaching

How it works

A school that adapts to you

This isn't a set of static videos. Every lesson is generated live and tuned to where you actually are.

We learn your level

A quick placement check tailors your starting point so you're never bored or lost.

Lessons adapt as you go

Each lesson is written for your pace and your goal, adjusting as your skills grow.

Your AI coach keeps you moving

Checkpoints, feedback, and gentle nudges turn progress into a real result.

The curriculum

What's inside your school

8 modules · 40 lessons

The Biblical Theology of Suffering

Establishes the canonical, theological, and anthropological foundations for understanding suffering across the full sweep of Scripture.

1.1The Origin of Suffering in the Biblical NarrativeIncluded
1.2The Fall, Sin, and the Entrance of Human BrokennessIncluded
1.3Categories of Suffering in Old and New Testament TheologyIncluded
1.4Personal, Corporate, and Cosmic Dimensions of SufferingIncluded
1.5God's Sovereignty and Human SufferingIncluded

The Problem of Evil and the Goodness of God

Engages the philosophical and theological problem of evil, developing a faithful Christian theodicy with both intellectual rigor and pastoral sensitivity.

2.1The Theological Problem of Evil and SufferingIncluded
2.2Divine Omnipotence, Goodness, and the Reality of PainIncluded
2.3Human Freedom, Moral Evil, and Divine ProvidenceIncluded
2.4Biblical Theodicy and the Mystery of God's PurposesIncluded
2.5Faithful Responses to Unanswered QuestionsIncluded

Suffering in the Old Testament

Performs close theological readings of the Old Testament's major suffering texts, situating each within its canonical and redemptive-historical context.

3.1Job and the Mystery of Righteous SufferingIncluded
3.2Joseph and the Providential Transformation of SufferingIncluded
3.3Israel's Suffering, Covenant, and Divine DisciplineIncluded
3.4Lament, Grief, and Protest in the PsalmsIncluded
3.5The Suffering Servant in Isaiah's TheologyIncluded

Christology and the Theology of Redemptive Suffering

Develops a comprehensive Christological theology of suffering, atonement, and resurrection as the center of redemptive history.

4.1The Incarnation and God's Identification with Human SufferingIncluded
4.2The Sufferings of Christ and the Theology of the CrossIncluded
4.3Atonement, Redemption, and the Suffering ServantIncluded
4.4Christ's Victory over Sin, Death, and the Powers of DarknessIncluded
4.5Participation in the Sufferings and Resurrection Life of ChristIncluded

The Biblical Theology of Divine Healing

Constructs a full canonical theology of divine healing spanning covenant history, the ministry of Jesus, apostolic practice, and the Kingdom of God.

5.1God as Healer in Biblical RevelationIncluded
5.2Healing in the Covenant History of IsraelIncluded
5.3Healing in the Ministry of Jesus ChristIncluded
5.4Healing in the Apostolic ChurchIncluded
5.5Divine Healing and the Kingdom of GodIncluded

The Holy Spirit, Spiritual Gifts, and the Ministry of Healing

Grounds charismatic healing ministry in pneumatology, ecclesiology, and responsible pastoral discernment.

6.1The Holy Spirit and the Continuation of Christ's Healing MinistryIncluded
6.2Gifts of Healings and Miraculous WorksIncluded
6.3Faith, Prayer, and Anointing in Healing MinistryIncluded
6.4Discernment, Spiritual Authority, and Pastoral ResponsibilityIncluded
6.5Healing Ministry within the Worshiping CommunityIncluded

Unanswered Prayer, Persistent Illness, and the Mystery of Healing

Provides a theologically honest and pastorally responsible account of why healing does not always come, resisting both fatalism and triumphalism.

7.1Why Faithful Believers May Remain UnhealedIncluded
7.2Paul's Thorn and the Sufficiency of Divine GraceIncluded
7.3Divine Sovereignty, Human Faith, and Misinterpretations of HealingIncluded
7.4Medicine, Miracles, and Responsible Christian TheologyIncluded
7.5Hope, Perseverance, and Trust amid Persistent SufferingIncluded

Eschatological Healing and Pastoral Theology of Hope

Synthesizes the entire course into a Christ-centered eschatological vision and equips students for compassionate, theologically grounded pastoral ministry.

8.1The Already and Not Yet of the Kingdom of GodIncluded
8.2Resurrection as the Ultimate Divine HealingIncluded
8.3The New Creation and the End of SufferingIncluded
8.4Pastoral Care for the Sick, Grieving, and SufferingIncluded
8.5Developing a Christ-Centered Theology of Suffering, Healing, and HopeIncluded

Who it's for

Is this you?

Seminary students

Pursuing MA-level theological formation and needing a rigorous, exegetically grounded treatment of theodicy and healing to complement their systematic theology coursework.

Parish pastors

Preaching and shepherding week after week, she needs a robust biblical framework for suffering and healing that holds up at the bedside and from the pulpit.

Hospital chaplains

Working daily alongside the sick and dying, he needs a theologically grounded pastoral theology of unanswered prayer, persistent illness, and resurrection hope.

Healing ministry leaders

Leading prayer and healing ministry in her congregation, she wants the biblical theology and pneumatological depth to exercise that calling with discernment and integrity.

Theological educators

Teaching Bible or theology at a college or ministry school, he's building a comprehensive course on suffering and needs a peer-level scholarly resource to draw from.

Doubting & searching ministers

His own encounter with suffering has unsettled easy answers — he's here to rebuild a theology of God's goodness that is honest, defensible, and pastorally livable.

Questions

Frequently asked

Your teacher

A note from your teacher

Timothy Atunnise

If you are reading this, I suspect you have already sat with someone whose prayers were not answered the way they hoped. You have stood at the graveside, or the hospital bed, or across the counseling table from someone whose faith was hanging by a thread — and you felt the weight of needing to say something true. Something that honored both the reality of their pain and the reality of God.

That weight is not a problem to be solved. It is a pastoral calling to be shaped. And shaping it requires more than good intentions — it requires rigorous theological formation.

This school began from a conviction that the church's most pressing pastoral challenges are also its deepest theological ones. The question of why the righteous suffer, whether God heals today and why sometimes he doesn't, how to preach hope without minimizing grief — these are not questions we can answer on the fly. They demand that we have done the hard work: working through the biblical text with patience and precision, wrestling with Job and Paul and Moltmann and the lament psalms, building a framework sturdy enough to hold both divine sovereignty and human anguish without collapsing into either fatalism or false triumphalism.

What I want for every student who comes through this material is the kind of theological confidence that doesn't swagger — the kind that has sat long enough with the mystery to be honest about it, and has found in that honesty not the loss of faith but a deeper, more durable kind. The kind that can stand before a congregation that includes the newly diagnosed and the long-grieving and the quietly skeptical, and preach a Christ who was acquainted with grief, who entered the suffering of the world, and who is even now making all things new.

That is the transformation this school is built to produce. Not a tidy systematic answer to every hard question, but a formed theological mind and a compassionate pastoral heart — able to think rigorously, teach faithfully, and minister with the kind of gravitas and grace that only comes from having done the work. I invite you in.